


Nightmares

by pirategirljack



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: 12 monkeys theme week 2016, Angst, Comfort, F/M, Nightmares, why do i like to make myself sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 15:48:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7469595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirategirljack/pseuds/pirategirljack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>12 Monkeys Theme Week Day 2 - Theories</p><p>Also not a theory so much as a filling-in-the-gaps. Apparently I like to make myself sad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightmares

Cole was sleeping on the couch when something woke him. It wasn't that comfortable a couch, but it was a hell of a lot better than all the hard ground he'd slept on most of his life, and he knew he was safe here, so he'd been pretty deep asleep, but there was a noise and it woke him.

A noise from Cassie.

This wasn’t the first time he’d been woken by her; suite 607 wasn’t large, and at night it was remarkably quiet. Sometimes he listened to her breathing, just to be sure she still was. Sometimes he thought about joining her in the bed, just to see what she’d do. She said she didn’t want to be afraid anymore, but all they did was follow the case and avoid the minefields between her heart and his. She didn’t want to be afraid, but she didn’t know how to stop, and it made Cole pull back. Over and over again.

But tonight...

She was in the bed where she usually was, tossing and turning, and she sounded terrified, so he crept over. His heart in his throat. Was he crossing a line?

“Cassie?” He whispered. Should he wake her? 

She called out, wordless and afraid, and in the dim city light coming through the windows, he saw tears on her cheeks, and it wasn't a debate anymore. When she was awake, she never let her tears fall, wouldn’t allow that weakness. Whatever she was dreaming, it was too bad to leave her in it. 

He sat on the bed beside her and caught her shoulder. Said her name again. She shot upright all at once, a strangled scream and a disoriented, wild look, her hands lashing out of their own accord. One of them caught him in the face and he caught the other one before it could do the same. She was fighting, reaching for weapons that weren’t there. 

What had his time done to her?

“Cassie! It's okay. It's me, you're safe, it's okay.”

“Cole?”

“Yeah, it's me. You're fine.”

The fear went out of her all at once and she collapsed into his arms in the safety of the dark, limp and shaking, surprising him more than the slap across the face had. “It was him,” she said, “the Witness. He took me again. Made me do--made me--”

“It's okay. It's not real. You're safe, Cas. I'm here.”

“It could be real,” she sobbed, the words barely intelligible, “it could be real, and I'm so scared.”

“It’s okay.”

“It so far from okay.”

He held her all night, through the storms of tears and the nightmares that followed, whispering over and over again that she was safe, he was here, he was never going to let anything happen to her. His chest felt like it would crack open. He kept his hands on her shoulders, kept very still so as not to startle her, so as not to infinge on the lines they’d drawn between each other in these close quarters.

He wanted to touch her face, to kiss her, to run his hands through her hair. He wanted to offer her anything, if it would still her sadness and sooth her fear, but he knew she wouldn’t take it. And he couldn’t do that to her--he couldn’t use her moment of weakness to get what he wanted, and leave her hating him.

She did that well enough on her own, without much help from him. Who would have thought Cassie would be so good at hate.

When dawn came, and the light flooded through the windows, she sighed and finally fell into a proper sleep.

Cole crept back to the sofa, and tried to get a few hours himself.

In the morning, she acted like nothing had happened, and in the evening after, he got himself drunk so he could, too.


End file.
